Today’s smartphones are well-equipped to satiate our appetites for instant gratification. We stream live video, look up facts on a whim, receive breaking news alerts and stay connected to our friends via social media. But one thing has lagged behind this culture of immediacy: smart phones’ batteries.

Now, it looks like recharging our phones could finally keep pace with the demands of our fast-moving culture. Yesterday an Israeli company called StoreDot unveiled a new smartphone battery that fully recharges in just 30 seconds. In contrast the couple hours it takes for a typical smartphone to fully charge, seems hopelessly outdated.

The battery manages such a speedy charge by utilizing quantum dot technology. Quantum dots are tiny bio-organic nanocrystals made of semiconducting materials. The battery is just a prototype at this point, and it’s still big and clunky — about the size of a laptop charger. However, the company plans to scale down its size and begin mass production of the device in 2016, the Wall Street Journal reports.

So will we have electric cars that can charge in the amount of time it takes to fill up with gas?

john

Smartphones take a lot less to charge, typically 9v as opposed to a typical house outlet 120v, the cars I believe run much higher than that and it takes a while to build up that much voltage in a capacitor. The Amperage is also probably relatively tiny. But it could come in the future

Guest

John that 120 is very USA and most countries are at 240 for everything. And that supply voltage combined with 60amps of supply means charging a car would latterly take no longer then going to the station pluggin in and getting you coffee. Right Now you can Buy that coffee and a 10 course meal with a nap and still only be almost there. Personlly I like cost of Lead Silicate batteries that ZEV uses in their Electic Motorcycles.

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz4.htm Uncle Al

“big and clunky — about the size of a laptop charger.” Volume decreases as the cube of the dimension. They’ll be stuffing ten pounds in a one pound bag. That sort of thing is generally reserved for pension obligation extrapolations and heathcare funding pitches .

ScotNot

Capacity please. Charge time is irrelevant if it’s a 10 mAHr battery. Not enough detail here for my amazement detector. I do like the Tektronix scope in the shot, though. Suggests they have good taste in test equipment.

FYI, supercaps can charge 100 times faster than this with a decent current source. Their capacity is limited, but they cycle endlessly without a lot of degradation.

Quantum dots are going to show up soon in a lot of things. I hope this tech hasn’t any downsides and look forward to seeing it commercialized.

I frigging love supercaps, though. (Not as high a volumetric efficiency, but man, are they cool or what?)

Guest

Is this the gadget invented by the high school girl who came I. Second on this year’s Intel Science Fair? I hope so; she’ll make enough to pay for her Harvard classes. If not, this company has copied or stolen a fabulous idea.

Midgard Serpent

that high school girl didn’t invent the graphene superconductor, she just used the method used to mike it

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com Sally Bell

Is this the gadget the high school girl invented that came in second in last year’s Intel Science Fair? I hope so; she’ll make enough to pay for her Harvard classes, plus some. If not, this company has copied or stolen something really cool.